Good Pain
by Eightfold
Summary: How Michael got his tattoo. Feedback much appreciated!


**Title:** Good Pain  
**Author:** Psuzan Death, psuzan@kekkai.org, http://www.kekkai.org/psuzan/  
**Fandom:** Angel Sanctuary  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Warnings:** Implied yaoi/shounen-ai, mild spoilers, vague SM  
**Comments:** Very welcome! Please, I love feedback.  
**Disclaimer:** All characters and the AS world belong to Kaori Yuki; I don't own them. This fic is mine, however; don't steal, don't reprint without permission. Feedback welcome. More AS fic at: http://www.crackrabbit.net/as/

It had been the first thing Michael ever asked of him. 

The whole office reeked of disinfectant and ozone from the cooling system, needlessly spicy food and stainless steel and latex. 

Food was to **try** and get that horrible feeling of grime out of his mouth, like he'd been going down on a toilet bowl. 

Sometime ago, one shaking hand clutching at a soiled tissue, he'd realized he felt filthy. Ran his tongue over teeth and come up gritty and bitter, run a hand through hair and come up oily, or at least it felt that way. 

Tracing back the trail through his mind, Raphael realized it was due to staying in late to try and manage the work that had piled up before him -- which was due to avoiding the office. He had never *asked* to be promoted to Great Virtues, never wanted to leave the cold and sterile comfort of the Dominions Lab in which he'd spent his entire existence, had no *ambition* towards his elevated position -- which seemed to involve going to lots of meetings and not doing anything, wasting valueable research time in mindless politicking, in turn causing him to come into the office late and establish a large queue of patients that he could never quite finish off in time, so they'd given him this assistant, this... woman, who *had* to leave her lab coat half buttoned like that just to *tease* him, had to be *laughing* at him behind those dark eyes, it wasn't **his** fault he couldn't concentrate on medicine with eyes like that-- 

-- it was mostly because of Belial. 

His hand was drawing something, he realized with a wince, on what had been the chart of a particularly troublesome patient. 

The sketch was rough and loose, but perfectly suggestive: someone's head looking down, covered by a tussled mane of short red hair -- mechanical, somehow, anatomically perfect and correct, capturing the perfection of the form, but very little of the character underneath it. 

Quickly, he crumpled it into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder. The equation describing the flight path ran through his head, a perfect arc solving itself in lightning script before his eyes, sailing lightly through the air in simultaneous obediance and defiance of gravity -- 

-- landing just short of the target to bounce off the basket's rim, hanging suspended in the air at the top of the rebounding arc for a perfect moment before falling down once more -- 

-- and hitting the rim again with a crash that split his eardrums and shook the entire room. 

Exploding concrete made him automatically duck and cover, a cloud of masonry dust billowing out from ground zero: a neat person-sized hole, complete with wings outlined in sheared-off rebar, surrounding the Archangel Michael like a post-modern halo. 

By the time he'd pulled out of the protective crouch, the Great Powers was standing astride his desk like a Colossus, wearing only boots, rubber shorts and a pair of suspenders, waving his sword aloft like a conductor's baton. 

"GLORIOUS! Like a SYMPHONY of TRIUMPH! A CHOIR of BLOOD to PRAISE HIM!" 

Blinking in confusion at the gleeful Angel of Flame, it took Raphael several moments running himself through a battery of tests designed to assess mental competance before he realized that it was Michael who was _con compos mentis_. Ragged pupils, convoluted speech, *disturbing* imagery, manic bearing, lack of respect for peronsal boundaries... the Great Powers was clearly mad. 

Mad, and possessed of seniority over a newly promoted Great Virtues, still clutching a packet of tissue like a rosary. 

"... er, yes, Lord Michael." He managed to drop his hands from his face but not stop their shaking. 

The red-headed Powers was crouched on all fours, feet planted in the wilderness of papers on the desk, looming over him like some beast ready to pounce. Michael's pupils were constricted to black pinpricks, displaying a huge expanse of blue iris that burned like unhealthy gasflame. 

He craned his head foreward, neck straining as he shoved his face into Raphael's -- beautiful musculature, like a Greek statue but twisted, with an manic anima the classical sculptors would have deplored as unruly. 

Michael's breath was hot on Raphael's cheek, fetid, and dangerously close. 

"Aren't you going to CONGRATULATE me?" 

Raphael swallowed and tried to back away, the wheels of his chair squeaking as they ground into the sterile tiling. "... on _what_, precisely, Lord Michael?" 

_Bide for time, talk to him, try and get to the root of the psychosis..._

"My triumph over yet ANOTHER band of those WRETCHED EVILS, *obviously!*" Michael slammed a fist into the side of the desk, wobbling for just an instanst before catching himself. Green eyes rolled dramatically while the Great Powers snorted. 

_All right, all right... you're the Great Virtues now, you can **do** this... praise him, try to **empathize** with him, be **sympathetic**, just follow procedure and everything will be fine...._

"Slaughtering a bunch of minor demonic beings? Should I congratulate you for swatting _flies_, too?" The words rolled off Raphael's tongue like whiskey before he could stop himself. _Oh god, oh god, where did **that** come from, oh god now *I'm* developing verbal tics..._

Lunging foreward, the redhead snapped his teeth inches from Raphael's face, straining his neck to reach and digging claw-like nails into the edge of the desk, making curls scrape out from the wood. The green eyes opened wide, pupils *vibrating* with rage, the red veins visible at the corners. 

"WHAT did you SAY?!!! Are you IMPLYING I'm a FLY-SWATTER?!!!" 

His voice lept an octave upwards as he screeched, gaining another two as Michael trailed off into inarticulate and twitched violently. The spasmodic jerks of his head, like a dog with a fly caught in its ear, made him teeter precariously in the crouch, looming in ominously against Raphael's face, foreheads butting like clashing rams. 

"Ha!" Michael suddenly stiffened and barked in amused laughter, a maniacally gleeful grin cracking his mouth. "Even ANGELS are just FLIES to the GREAT POWERS! There's nothing special about YOU LOT!" A bony finger darted out to jab at Raphael's sternum, bruising the flesh. 

"That's what *he* said, you know! The FLIES!" cackled the suddenly-delighted Michael, snapping himself backwards and dropping with a thud to sit cross-legged on the desk, heels thunking into wood. He sniffed thoughtfully and picked at his fishnet. "And if HE said it, it COMES from GOD.... Since HE stands closest and I'M CLOSEST to him, all the rest of YOU are below US." One eyeball rolled to the side to squint at the collapsed Raphael, sniffing contemptously. "I mean, you're lucky to be HEARING it, really!" 

Suddenly able to breathe again, Raphael slid an inch foreward in the embrace of the now slightly sweaty leather. His fingers began shredding the tissue in his hand of their own accord. _Oh, no, he's obviously bipolar, too... interest, interest, show *interest*, empathize damnit!_. 

"What *who* said?" 

Beaming widely and sticking his chest out, Michael proclaimed, "LUCIFAEL, obviously! The Great Seraphim, the Angelic superstar, the COOLEST and most POWERFUL and SARCASTICEST Angel is ALL of HEAVEN!" Picking at a strand of his fishnets, he took in a breath to continue the paean, then suddenly slumped and rested his chin on a knee. "Of COURSE, he wouldn't care about a bunch of buzzing flies." Looking up suddenly he gave another bark of a laugh that faltered off into a half-choked sob covered by sudden manic babbling. "But a DJINN, that's impressive, right? They can throw FIRE and have HORNS ON -- oooh, no, no, I'll slay a LEVIATHAN!" Bouncing so fast he almost levitated, wings sweeping out to flutter a few times, Michael's manic grin returned. 

Raphael ran out of tissue, and clutched at the shredded remains like a rosary. _... Please, Lord, give me thy physican strength to extend your Grace to him, your beloved servant and child. Because I haven't a clue what he's on about._

"Why not a dragon, if you're looking for something to prove yourself with?" 

With a snarl, Michael's wings lashed out into his face. "I don't have ANYTHING to prove to YOU LOT!" Jumping off the desk, he ground his feet into Raphael's toe. "I have NOTHING to prove to HIM, EITHER! I'll go find a Dragon and RUN IT THROUGH and burn it to a CRISP, even if I've got to endure HORRIBLE PAIN with my SKIN flayed off of my BONES!" Green eyes glinting, he looked entirely too eager at the prospect. 

Bits of tissue drifted from Raphael's hands, floating to the ground like down. He tilted his head up, the last bits of tissue falling from his hand as he reached up to rub the sudden crick in his neck. "... just *one* dragon? Not very permanent, is it?" 

The flesh of his lips twitched unbidden into a smile, and he found himself saying, "After all, if you've killed one dragon, you've killed them all." Eyes still locked on his patient, he didn't have to look to see the symptoms. 

Michael's hands clenched into fists at his sides, teeth exposed like tombstones. "A whole FLOCK of dragons won't stand in the way of ME MAKING HIM LISTEN!" He jerked his head to set it on one side, eyes narrowed at Raphael. "He's got to SEE, and he'll only see it if it's WRITTEN IN BLOOD! Mine, theirs, across the sky and in the flesh!" 

A soothing platitude leapt to his lips, but some perverse instinct of bedside manner stilled him. 

Something clicked into place, like the unlocking of a surgical blade or the tying off of a suture, and Raphael found himself regarding Michael with a look he knew too well: cold, clinical, as sharp and precise as a scalpel; the look of a Dominions researcher studying a vivisection specimen. 

The Great Virtues leaned foreward, his fingers steepled and his palms pressed together. "... your *own* blood," Raphael remarked, surgically precise. 

Michael snarled and lunged foreward to catch the steepled hands in his fists. With a wrench, he lifted them enough to drag Raphael halway to his feet. "My OWN blood," he hissed, green eyes boring into pools of blue. "It's a SACRIFICE, don't you SEE? Scars, or marks, or... or burn marks, he'd finally NOTICE!" 

He detached Michael's hands from around his and stood, regarding the other Angel with a clinical detachment bordering on the jaded. His lips twitched in somthing like amusement, if only at the irony of the situation. "Sacrifices should be things of *beauty*, Micah'El. Burns and scars are not fitting adornments." 

The Great Powers threw his head back and laughed, full and long and loud, for a moment retreating from the confrontation. 

"You don't know ANYTHING," snapped Michael insistently, as his head came back down so fast that his jaws met with an audible click. "All SACRIFICES have to do is BLEED enough to PLEASE GOD!" A hand thumped onto his chest, palm striking flesh over and over again for emphasis. "Nothing BEAUTIFUL would be ENOUGH PAIN!" 

Raphael listened dispassionately to Michael's ranting, lifting a hand at the assertion. "I know nothing? I remind you, Lord Michael, that I *am* Great Virtues. The art and science of sacrifice is only one of those I am Lord over." The hand fell downards and plucked a hypodermic needle off his desk, which he held it up pointedly. "Never heard of tattooing, have you?" 

As he eyes lurched sideways to regard the needle, Michael lowered his head, leaned over, and peered at it from a variety of angles; none appearing satisfactory. 

Experimentally, he brought a palm up and drove it down onto the needle, faster than Raphael could react. Jerking his hand back and forth, he drove it deeper onto the spike, between the bones and sinews of his hand. With a manic grin, he wiggled his fingers at Raphael. "Will it make him REALISE that I'm not just his little BROTHER?" 

"I rather suspect that depends on what you have tattooed." Raphael yanked the needle free of Michael's flesh with a precise and controlled flick of his wrist. Staring distastefully at the forcibly desterilized needle, he dropped it back onto the floor. The clatter of metal on tile rang sharply against the quiet hum of the air filtration system. 

_Injure._ The thought floated up into Raphael's mind. _I have an obligation to injure as little as possible, if surgery is required... Great Lord, are you testing me?_

The look in Michael's eyes was strange, oddly bright, as the red-headed Archangel regarded his stigmatized palm. Again Raphael found himself speaking without conscious contemplation; he wondered if this was what they named 'intuition'. His bedside manner had never been the best amongst the Dominions. 

"Although I suppose needles wouldn't be enough pain for the Great Powers, would it?" 

Michael drew his tongue along the flesh of his palm in a slow rasp, savouring the few drops of blood. "HARDLY. NOTHING can stop the Great Powers! Haven't you seen me in action? I turn the SKY bloody!" He turned both palms inwards, and moves them slowly down over one side of his body, skimmed almost gracefully over the skin. "The SEIRYUU, obviously! It's the only beast that represents the MAJESTY of my POWER!" He dragged his hands down slowly, pressed in against his side. 

_Mad. He's utterly mad. He'd really mutilitate his flesh just to get the attention of Lucifael... to get the attention of **God**, really._ A nervous notion invaded his mind again. _Mad, or posessed of more faith than anyone in Heaven._

With a shrug, Raphael flipped his palm over smoothly and stared at it, as the smell of ozone stirred over the dry, recirculated air and the artificial lemon of antisceptic. Blue lightning crackled over his hand and danced across the surface of the skin. 

"I shall place my bets on the power of electrodynamics, Micah'El." The electricity flashed out and a smile flashes over his features just as quickly. "It is said the beating of their wings is what causes the Astral Storms, you know -- the Seiryuu, that is." 

The Fire Angel threw his hand out, the mounts of fingers straining white. "Are you saying you want to take me ON?" he snarled, shaking his hand and setting the cross hanging from his earlobe to jangling. "You KNOW I can't be beaten! Our blood's closest to GOD!" 

A muscle jumped in Michael's cheek from holding the grin -- _there's that tic again_. He took a step forward and pushed his face into Raphael's. "THAT's what it's got to be, then, isn't it? The mighty SEIRYUU and the Great POWERS!" 

Raphael gave a hollow smile at Michael's aggressions and stepped up to meet the smaller Angel. "Not take you *on*... Mark *on* you -- 'Thou shalt not mark thy flesh for the dead'... but he's not, is he?" He glanced down at the fishnet-clad shoulder. "As you wish. Shall I go sterilize some needles?" 

Michael snorted, his breath hot against Raphael's mouth. As Raphael quoted, expression and anima slowly blanked from his face, until he abruptly shook his head. 

"Just DO it," he snapped impatiently, then threw both arms backwards and rocked on his heels, "stop TALKING in CIRCLES like those council MEMBERS who go on and on and **ON** at him, they should stop BOTHERING HIM! JUST DO IT!" 

His hand moved of its own accord, cracking like the lightning that arced from his fingers. Electrified fingers clamped down on Michael's shoulder, bathing both their features in jerky blue-white light. 

"Then hold **still**," Raphael murmured down at his patient, scalpel-eyes narrowed against the snap and hiss of pure Elemental Air in its Astral form. It itched at his palms and made the skin tingle, the way his fingertips always itched to throw cures at any wounded he encountered, the sight of their injuries almost pulling the healing from his heart. 

But Michael was perfect, hale beyond health; Raphael flicked his gaze down the now almost-cringing form of the Great Virtues thoughtfully. Despite his short stature, Michael was as perfect as the Great Seraphim himself -- musculature precisely defined, neither bulky nor wiry, simply lithe and graceful, like an anatomical digram. The features of his face were regular and even, but for the tussled red hair stained dullish blood-red in the crackling electric light. Every feather in his wings were as white as magnesium flare, vibrating with energy, each extended ever so slightly by the reflexes that made an Angel's wings as expressive as a cat's ears, a dog's tail or a human's face. Michael was perfect. 

Except for those eyes, now the green of acid and poison, manic, glaring back fiercely with a primal mix of fear and anger and pain and fascination and adrenaline -- and pride, pride so fierce and rabid it cut into the pain showing in his eyes and the cant of his wings. The eyes of a pain-maddened animal, or a dervish. 

Michael didn't move an inch until Raphael dragged one fingertip down the graceful curve of his chest to hook into the black threads of fishnet. 

"Take it off." The physician's command was as absolute as a General's, in a Heaven choired by literal medical miracles; even the Great Powers obeyed without thinking, grabbing the waist of his shirt and crossing his arms as he pulled it over his chest, to expose a white and hairless chest, as smooth and sculpted as marble. Green eyes narrowed suspiciously, as Michael threw the fishnet into a pile on the floor by the wastebin. 

"Can't you DO IT already?" He questioned irritably, lips pulling back to reveal teeth as white as his skin. 

Raphael felt his lips contort into that clinical smile again, as he swept his curve down Michael's breast. The curve of his palm followed the muscle almost perfectly, heartbeat thudding against his flesh as if straining to escape the ribcage it beat against. 

_... which is entirely possible. If he were human, or it were Assian electricity as opposed to the Astral power I have as an Element, the shock to his heart would make him go into arrest. But he's an Element, too; odd, this is the only thing that could scar him. Not even that sword of the Great Seraphim could leave a mark, unless it cut his wings._

The shape of a great serpent uncurled his mind as the thoughts breezed through his upper consciousness: a beast so blue-indigo as to be nearly ultraviolet, only fading to a reddish purple along the belly, where it kept its fires. 

One finger extended, he traced the first strokes of an outline along the outer curve of Michael's pectoral, brushing the fingertip up the skin like a feather. Minute amounts of Astral power dancing across his nail and into the white skin, crackling neon bright for a moment before sinking in to dye the flesh deep blue, the edges of the line reddened with irritation and pain. 

Twitching feathers kicked up a minor storm as Michael's wings moved involuntarily; Raphael withdrew his hand reflexively. 

"Not much of a sacrifice if you're flinching every second, are you?" _Not much of a **Healer** if I'm haranguing him every second..._

The jibe only made Michael crack a wide and feral grin, grabbing Raphael's hand by the wrist and digging his thumbs pointedly into the junction at the heel of the hand, sending sharp pain shooting up the forearm. "I said DO IT, **Physician**!" Flecks of spittle splattered onto his cheek, like the first drops of rain in a summer heatstorm. 

With another twisting tug, Michael brought the hand back up to his flesh, palm over his heart, insisting, "DO IT!" 

Nodding abruptly, blue eyes locking onto green, Raphael took up sketching the outlines again. Here and there, the buzz of lightning zapping into flesh would illuminate the whole office, as the Seiryuu stretched itself along Michael's skin and unfurled its wings. The smell of ozone almost managed to drown out that of burnt flesh. 

Raphael trailed arcs and splines along shoulder and spine, matching them to the natural contours of the skin. Even in the outline, blurred by angry red, the dragon looked almost three-dimensional. It seemed a part of Michael's skin, something grown from it and not simply tattooed on. 

Here and there, the stoic victim would twitch or almost moan; the taught rigidity of his posture slumped after a while, and Raphael found himself with his arm around Michael's waist by the time the outline was complete. Each twitch, shudder, and suppressed gasp only illuminated the holistic beauty of the living canvas -- like a model striking different poses to highlight different groups of muscles. 

He paused to admire his work, while Michael flicked a tongue over lips that he'd chewed ragged and bloody. 

"Pretty GOOD," he slurred, with a woozy grin still entirely too maniacal to be healthy. "But you aren't DONE YET. Get ON WITH IT." A few trickles of sweat ran down his chest. Raphael found himself distracted, watching a flaming lock of hair that shone red-gold in the light. 

He didn't bother dignifying the command with a remark, just lazily replaced his hand, the chest below now warm to the touch while simultaneously clammy with sweat, other arm tightening across the hollow of Michael's back simultaneously. Marble flesh had pebbled into goosebumps, along with stiffened nipples and flushed cheeks. The skin about the outline was just beginning to fade as he called up the power again, the nerves of his wings singing and make him spread his feathers as he reached for the crackling blue energy. 

Coils of energy spread out over Michael's chest, whirling and snapping, arcs striking flesh over and over again, too fast for the eye to follow. The shape of the scales took form slowly, blue followed by violet followed by indigo, as the energy sunk far deeper into the flesh than before. He ran his hands over Michael, almost roughly, as the pads of his fingers slipped on sweat and had to grope at the flesh for purchase. 

Flashing electricity made Michael's occasional gasps and twitches even more jerky and abrupt, like watching 35mm film on an ancient projection screen. The dragon-scales blossomed across his flesh, and eventually he slipped his hold on his voice, teeth releasing a torn lip to let out an agonized moan. 

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" 

Angels sang and screamed with Astral voices; even howls and moans of agony were exquisite to the ear. Michael's melody of torment filled the office, almost surreally ethereal over the hiss of lightning, the gurgle of pipes, the hum of the A/C. 

Silver and gold-belled harmony, a chorded voice like a harp playing against itself, even the hot copper and bronze notes of hot needling pain and deep muscle agony were beautiful. Michael's voice slid up the scale without pause for breath, an arc mirrored by the backwards arch of his spine as he dove into pain. His sharp and ragged nails dug into his palms, tearing up flesh. Blood splurted from the wounds, and still the howl carried on, spiraling upwards in a melliflous scale of anguish. 

It almost might have been the radio -- but the sound reverberated between Raphael's vertebrae and pulled out a shiver, and Michael's eyes rolled back in his head as his wings beat out against the arm supporting him. 

The feathers were ludicrously soft. 

Just before Rapahel finished the last touches to the Seiryuu, Michael's eyes snapped open. Pupils almost fully dilate, he craned his neck up and pressed his mouth against Raphael's. The kiss was hot, salty, insistent and aggressive. Michael mauled him with teeth and tongue and the simple taste of blood flooding past his lips -- the Great Powers had bitten open his tongue to keep from crying out. 

When they finally pulled away (_and which of them had it been? -- How **long** had it been, swimming the electric blue light?_), Michael sank razor-sharp teeth into Raphael's lower lip and savaged it, tugging harshly before ripping away with a chocked gasp. 

Still wearing the rictus smile, he stretched up one hand and clawed his fingers down Raphael's cheek, leaving four bloody rents in the flesh -- mirrored on his own face by a single tear sliding ragged down his skin. 

And promptly passed out, leaving Raphael to support his entire weight. He carried the prone form over to his desk and laid him out carefully, pausing to pick the fishnet off the floor and drape it across Michael. Something caught his vision out of the corner of his eye; he stooped back over the floor and picked up it up. Long fingers smoothed out the crinkled paper; he stared at the sketch for a moment before wadding it again and tossing back into the wastebin. 

Michael had curled up fetal, one arm wrapped around himself, the other on his shoulder. He gnawed on it like a teething infant, twitching and tossing in his sleep. One booted foot kicked out and nearly caught Raphael in the side; he could have sworn he heard a muttered 'aniki'. 

Grabbing hold of the boot, he fell back into his chair and started unlacing. Threat through eyelet over thread through eyelet under thread, as the leather creaked and loosened. Raphael tugged off one boot, than the other, Michael's only reaction to shift in position and chew harder on his forearm. He drew his legs up tighter towards his stomach, dragging a few files across the desk and displacing more. 

After rescuing his charts, Raphael peered at them with oddly refreshed eyes. _Well..._, he thought, _it's not like I'm distracted anymore..._


End file.
